The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for user-specific monitoring and control of production, in particular apparatuses and methods for processing plastics into specific products. For sake of simplicity, the invention will be described hereinafter with reference to apparatuses for processing plastic materials. However, this is not meant to limit the subject matter of the invention, which may include any type of production machines.
Apparatuses for processing plastic materials, in particular extruders or injection molding machines, form the aforementioned plastic products by employing a particular sequence of separate fabrication processes, which can be controlled with predetermined process parameters.
These products must in many cases satisfy ever increasing quality demands. On the other hand, large quantities are produced by a number of suppliers, so that the product offering is relatively large, the realized sale prices are comparatively small, so that the manufacturers are under steadily increasing pressure to reduce costs, in particular energy costs. This requires an accurate control of the quality and productivity as well as cost-related items, such as the energy usage for the production.
When employing conventional apparatuses, frequently only the average costs can be determined for a particular product, and only the approximate production costs for a certain production lot, which are based on a number of averaged and experience values, such as energy and service costs of the machine. These values may also be available only after the production, because not all relevant parameters are available beforehand.
Conventional apparatuses have another disadvantage in that fixed time intervals based on experience must be set to service them. These apparatuses are therefore typically serviced too early, which causes unnecessary downtimes and costs.
On the other hand, service may already be required within such normally sufficient, fixed service interval because of increased wear. In this situation, damage to the apparatus and, more particularly, to the employed injection molding tools is frequently recognized too late. This also causes additional expenses in form of repair costs and again downtimes.